PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Following recommendations from a committee of faculty, staff, students and senior administrators, the Corporation of Brown University approved a Fiscal Year 2027 Brown operating budget that includes $1.89 billion in revenues and $1.95 billion in expenditures.
The budget reflects continued investments in Brown students and employees; support for Brown’s academic mission and strategic priorities, including several major term-limited investments that will yield new funding after an initial period of investment; gradual but significant process in reducing a structural deficit; funding for campus safety and recovery efforts after the Dec. 13, 2025, mass shooting on campus; and measures to support the work of students, faculty and staff as the University navigates an uncertain federal funding environment.
Continuing a sustained focus on investing in Brown’s mission and the people across campus who fulfill that mission, employee salaries, wages and benefits account for the largest share (43%) of expenses for FY27, with a budget of $830 million, and student financial aid comprises the second-largest share (26%), at $506 million.
Brown’s highest governing body approved the budget during its May meetings in line with recommendations in the report of the University Resources Committee (URC). Provost and URC Chair Francis J. Doyle III said the approved budget helps Brown continue a transition from a tuition-dependent financial model toward a more diversified set of academic offerings and revenue sources aligned with its research university peers.
“We are confident that this FY27 budget and our proactive, disciplined multi-year plan will grow revenues and effectively manage expense growth to ensure Brown remains on a trajectory of sustained financial resilience and academic distinction,” Doyle said. “We remain steadfast in our commitment to enrolling and educating outstanding students, providing the resources to propel groundbreaking research, and sustaining a community in which our talented and dedicated students, faculty and staff can thrive.”
Building a sustainable financial path forward
In a cover letter outlining the URC’s recommended FY27 budget, Doyle noted that Brown is approaching the end of an unsettled Fiscal Year 2026 given the impacts of a federal research funding freeze that affected Brown in 2025 and broader shifts in the research funding environment.
The University had already launched a Financial Health Initiative in 2024 to address a persistent gap between revenues and expenses that — if left unaddressed — would continue to widen. Multiple actions were initiated, including managing employee headcount, moderating Ph.D. admissions, limiting operating expense growth, and growing master’s and professional program revenue. When a federal funding freeze began in April 2025, posing enormous challenges for Brown’s research mission and financial sustainability, Brown paused hiring, further reduced spending and developed an FY26 budget with aggressive expense reductions.
In July 2025, a voluntary resolution agreement between Brown and the federal government lessened but did not eliminate the negative financial impact of federal actions. With efforts from both University leaders and units across campus, Brown closed the remaining $30 million budget gap with measures ranging from consolidating health plans and eliminating 103 staff positions to selling non-strategic real estate and pausing spending toward net-zero emissions goals.
As a result of those measures, the University made significant progress reducing its structural deficit while investing in important academic priorities and navigating short-term challenges.
“While our total operating deficit will grow for FY27, this has been projected in Brown’s multi-year financial plan,” Doyle said. “That plan also anticipates deficits for Fiscal Years 2028 and 2029, including both a structural deficit and term-limited strategic investments that are essential for long-term revenue growth and ensuring Brown’s academic excellence. Deficits are projected to rapidly improve in the years to follow, and the investments made in our teaching, learning and research mission will have a positive impact for decades to come.”
Reducing the structural deficit over time, rather than addressing it all at once, makes it possible for the University to continue to support academic priorities, maintain competitive compensation for faculty and staff, and provide world-class education, Doyle noted. Among the University’s long-term goals is to achieve a 3% operating margin each year, which would provide consistent resources to maintain and modernize the Brown campus, support new research initiatives and enhance the student experience.
“Reaching this goal will involve continued financial discipline,” Doyle said, “and we have a clear and actionable path forward.”
Strengthening support for students, employees, strategic priorities
Among the principles informing Brown’s decisions amid a challenging financial landscape are commitments to enroll talented students from all socioeconomic backgrounds; to support the world-class research of Brown faculty and scholars; and to support to the greatest extent possible the staff and operations that sustain the University’s community of teachers and learners. Each of those commitments is reflected in the FY27 budget.
Cornerstones of Brown’s strategy to grow and diversify its revenue sources are the continued expansion of master’s and professional programs, new efforts to cultivate corporate relationships that increase research funding, and support from donors to fund campus development projects.
The budget’s approval follows the February 2026 establishment of a 4.25% increase in undergraduate tuition and fees for 2026-27. To sustain a commitment to meeting 100% of every undergraduate’s demonstrated financial need, the budget includes a $6.8 million increase in financial aid for undergraduates, as well as a total student aid budget of $506 million to support undergraduate, master’s, Ph.D. and medical students.
The growth in Brown’s undergraduate financial aid budget expands on recent initiatives to enroll and support promising students from a wide range of socioeconomic groups, while reducing financial obstacles for low- and moderate-income families. Brown meets 100% of each student’s demonstrated financial need and covers full tuition for families earning $125,000 or less with typical assets, while students from families making less than $60,000 a year receive scholarships that cover all expenses — tuition, room, board, books and other costs. Other past efforts include replacing loans with grants in University financial aid awards, eliminating consideration of home equity for a family’s primary residence in making aid awards, reducing summer earnings expectations for high-need students, and becoming need-blind for all undergraduate international students.
The budget also provides $242 million in student aid and support for Ph.D., master’s and medical students, which ranges from fellowships and stipends.
“An academic community is at its best when it brings together students from a vast array of experiences and positions them to thrive,” Doyle said. “When students learn in classrooms next to peers whose paths differ from their own, it deepens dialogue, enriches understanding and better prepares graduates to lead in a complex world. And in research conducted across campus, that diversity of experience and perspectives fuels new questions, fresh ideas and more creative approaches to solving pressing challenges that impact society.”
Also reflected in the budget is a 3% salary pool for faculty and staff earning up to and including $80,000 (a 2.5% base increase), with a 2% pool approved for those who earn more (a 1.5% base increase). The pool continues a commitment to paying current faculty and staff competitively, even as the University focuses on moderating headcount growth.
“To sustain the academic excellence and community support that defines Brown, we must prioritize investing in the faculty and staff whose talents make the University’s success and impact possible,” Doyle said.
Other key expenditures include support for faculty research, undergraduate teaching, campus laboratories and strategic investments in the Brown University Health system (formerly Lifespan), the Brown Innovation and Research Collaborative for Health initiative, and grants to support workforce development initiatives in Rhode Island. The budget also includes substantial resources in FY27 to support campus safety, security and recovery measures in the aftermath of the mass shooting that took place on Dec. 13, 2025.
In developing the budget, the URC recommended other measures to keep Brown’s operating deficit as low as possible. Those include maintaining the Brown endowment’s payout at the high rate of 5.5% for FY27. The University’s multi-year financial plan assumes a gradual step-down in the payout rate over the next several years to a sustainable 5% by FY32.
The payout — the amount distributed from the endowment to support the designated purposes of nearly 4,000 unique endowed funds that support financial aid, faculty salaries, academic programs, research and much more — must be between 4.5% and 5.5% of the endowment value’s 12-quarter trailing average. At 5.5%, the endowment payout is the highest rate allowed per University policy and in alignment with the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act, to which Brown’s and all endowments are legally subject.
"Funding from the endowment plays a vital role in supporting priorities across the University every day,” Doyle said. “For FY26, a $351 million contribution to our operating budget is supporting student scholarships, professorships, academic programs and student life initiatives. That will grow to an all-time high of $369 million in FY27 as the endowment provides critical funding for financial aid, groundbreaking research and Brown’s contributions to communities locally and globally.”
Brown’s Fiscal Year 2027 begins on July 1, 2026. The full URC report is available on Brown’s website.
Brown's Fiscal Year 2027 Base Operating Budget
Consolidated Budget Revenue — Key Components
- Tuition and fees: $803 million
- Endowment: $369 million
- Sponsored research: $298 million
- Auxiliary and miscellaneous: $182 million
- Annual Fund and spendable gifts: $100 million
- Other income $140 million
Consolidated Budget Expenditures — Key Components
- Faculty compensation: $338 million
- Staff compensation: $471 million
- Student compensation: $20 million
- Undergraduate student aid: $238 million
- Graduate student aid: $243 million
- Other student aid: $25 million
- General operating and subcontracts: $372 million
- Property, debt and capital: $143 million
- Internal services, transfers and other: $100 million
Budget by Division
The University’s consolidated budget comprises six main budget divisions, detailed here with total expenditure budgets for FY27:
- Education & General and Auxiliary Enterprises: $1.4 billion
- Biology and Medicine: $282 million
- Public Health: $167 million
- Engineering: $83 million
- Pre-College Programs: $33 million
- Professional Studies: $17 million
Tuition and Fees
To enable students to anticipate the following year’s cost of attendance, the Brown Corporation approves tuition and fees in February each year. Undergraduate tuition and fees for 2026-27, as approved in February 2026, are:
- Tuition: $74,568
- Standard room rate: $10,710
- Standard board: $8,754
- Undergraduate student resources fee: $1,136
- Health services fee: $1,296
- Student activities fee: $442
- Student recreation fee: $110
TOTAL UNDERGRADUATE: $97,016
Graduate tuition for most doctoral and on-campus master’s degree programs will increase by 4% to $9,320 per course. Given a shift in the last decade to market-based pricing for some master’s degrees, approximately two dozen University master’s programs have tuition rates that vary from the standard — for many, tuition for 2026-27 will increase by 3.5%, with cost for nine programs decreasing or remaining the same as for 2026-27.
Medical school tuition will increase by 2.57% to $75,162.